A leading farm advisor and consultant have urged farmers who are recovering from flooding to keep on-farm thought processes in decision making in check.
Nicon Rural Services consultant and livestock producer Cam Nicholson, Geelong, identified three clear factors farmers need to be aware of when making decisions on their property post-flood.
The first of those is the need to be aware of the severity of the situation.
"I think it is important to acknowledge - and this is obvious, I know - that things are incredibly stressful, especially when you see a great season turn into a disaster," he said.
"This year in particular with high input costs, people have already spent those costs, what looked great has just gone out of [people's] grasp in a really big way."
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The second factor that farmers should recognise not only financial stresses, but "the emotional side of it".
Mr Nicholson believes there are flow on impacts if producers and farmers ignore those signs.
"If you're in a stressful sort of state of mind, you tend to make hasty and not well thought through decisions," he said.
"You tend to run more on your gut feel so you see things like... some safety issues with machinery being bogged and people cutting corners.
"[It's important] to take added care, particularly around safety because it's very easy when there's stress to do something you wouldn't do if you were thinking more rationally."
The third factor according to Mr Nicholson is trying to undertake decision making that involves other members of their local community.
"Quite often producers will make decisions by themselves, and I think involving others in your thoughts of what you want to do, whether it be your agronomist, neighbours, family members, business, banks, or whoever else, can benefit," he said
"Many will tend to think 'I got to do this' and you'll just go off and do it and some wouldn't have spoken to anyone else about what you are going to do.
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He said involving others in a farmer's thoughts of what they should to do next post-flood involves continued connection and checking in with each other long term.
"You're not Robinson Crusoe," he said.
"You're not alone in this, and there'll be a lot of other people in exactly the same position as you are.
"I'm sure you would help your mate if they were in strife or needed help so don't think it's unusual to connect with other people."
"Again, it's asking others what should be done rather than try and working it out yourself.
